Cycliq Fly 6 Review

I have an unwritten rule for my channel, and it’s this: if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. This is a no troll zone. Now, I wholeheartedly welcome criticism and opinions, but if it’s not constructive...it’s gonna get deleted. But when it comes to the Cycliq Fly 6, I’m having a hard time following my own rule.
These days, every cyclist needs a good tail light and unfortunately - I’m finding that I need to use mine way too much. Ten years ago, I’d only turn on the flashers at night, but today - I won’t leave the house for even a quick lunch loop without one. Drivers have just become too aggressive, too rushed, and way too careless.
But I’m still only getting about 3 hours out of the battery, and that’s on the most conservative flash mode, and lowest brightness settings. And that’s problem #1: I want to flash this sucker on the highest setting with the most frequency for the entirety of my ride - be it 2 hours or 6. And that’s just not possible. And, if I AM going on a 6 hour ride there’s no way to conserve enough of this light for the whole thing, so I end up in a scenario where I’m turning it on...and off...and on….and off...that is IF I remember to turn it on and off...which I usually don’t. And as luck would have it - I usually get brushed by a car when i accidentally leave it OFF, ORRRR when I’m swerving after reaching back to turn it on or off (because it takes finding and holding the vague, rubbery button down for a few seconds)
So that scenario leads me into a deep dive with the app, which was hooorrrriiibly slow before the latest software update. So slow that it sparked this review. I’m happy to say, however, that it’s running at a good speed now - and making changes to the settings is a much quicker process than before. So that’s a good thing. And, the Fly 6 takes great video but guess what? In order to get the most out of the battery you have to go back into the app and throttle the video quality down to 720. It’s still good enough to get a license plate, but only if the car has one installed up front - and that’s not a law in every state. Compounding that problem is the pragmatic talk I had with my buddy who’s a state trooper: he said that even WITH video footage AND the license number in a hit and run, the owner of the car can claim he wasn’t driving it if your video footage is low res. And if you’ve set your cycliq up for long battery life, well then you get - at best - a grainy image of the guy behind the wheel. Yes, you can dial the video quality back up to 1080p at 60 fps, but even then it’s a crapshoot to get a good image of the driver’s face because of the distance and the resolution.
So...getting the most out of this thing is kind of a game of whackamole and I’m just not sure dropping over TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS on a tail light with a camera and smartphone connectivity is really worth it.
Now, having said all that - I started this review by saying the only good criticism is CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. The problem is...everything I would suggest to improve it would kill the battery life. For example: I think it needs 4k video, and I need to be able to run it for 4-6 hours on low-flash mode, which means a bigger battery and likely more cost.
Which brings me to the price: you can get brighter tail lights for one-tenth the cost of a Cycliq. I mean, I TOTALLY see the value in this product if you’re a daily commuter who rides in urban bike lanes during morning and afternoon rush hours, but if you’re a racer, club rider, group rider or whatever I think you’re better of spending twenny bucks on a cheap flasher and doing your best to either TAKE THE LANE or stay off roads you KNOW are dangerous.
I’ll end by saying this: I know first hand that designing a product is a VERY hard thing to do. You can’t please everybody (especially me), and when it comes to engineering a complex multi-device product that’s also compact and weatherproof, you just can’t have 100% of everything you want. I know that. And honestly I think the Cycliq is a solid execution of a brilliant idea, but unfortunately the design team was hamstrung by current battery and camera technology. If they could pull off something similar for under a hundred bucks, they’d have a much more compelling product.